For a few years now, Safe Software has joined the majority of software publishers in offering its users access to its products as an annual subscription. But, unlike other publishers, who make migrating toward subscription models a mandatory, restrictive process, Safe Software has remained faithful to its culture of great flexibility by offering clients the choice to acquire only the elements they need and want.
The annual FME subscription is priced based on either one of these two variables:
- The estimated value of the licences to be deployed
- The size of the organization, as measured by criteria such as population or the number of students, passengers, etc.
Not a week goes by that we don’t hear from an FME client asking us if they should get a subscription. Here are the five main reasons the answer to that question is yes.
1. A simpler acquisition process and fewer costs
Although acquisition processes can be simple, more often than not they’re complex operations. But one thing is certain: an acquisition process always comes with a hefty management cost. And that’s even before you consider the administrative time users must often allocate to create the needs and/or opportunity analyses required to acquire new licences over time.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen so many projects abandoned because users just did not have the time to set up these analyses. Another reason projects are abandoned is because the acquisition wasn’t done fast enough to meet delivery requirements.
With a subscription agreement, you can create a multi-year contract based on anticipated use, so you only have to do the administrative work once. Then all your team has to do is focus on deploying FME technology to support your organization’s performance needs. Voilà!
2. Accelerate the adoption curve
Before subscriptions were an option, FME adoption rates hinged greatly on our clients’ capacity to obtain budgets for migrating to FME Server or acquiring additional FME Desktop licences. We even saw clients who had to create scheduled tasks in Windows as a makeshift way to run their workspaces while they waited for approval to get FME Server.
We’ve come a long way, and subscriptions are now a great way to accelerate the adoption curve. Most clients who are planning to implement FME using Consortech’s performance kits have negotiated a multi-year subscription agreement with an initial term of three to five years.
They can start rolling out FME Server as soon as they like, get more FME Server engines if they need more power, and add new FME Desktop licences when a new employee comes onboard or when a new department requests one.
3. Reduce initial acquisition costs
Especially for new clients, an FME subscription is a way to pay only for what they need on an annual basis, rather than make a large initial investment in permanent licences. This can be a particularly attractive option for smaller towns, thanks to population-based pricing.
Meanwhile, existing clients can reduce upfront investments and have immediate access to licences, such as for FME Server, or additional engines for specific projects.
4. Help IT departments go low-code
Many GIS and, particularly, IT departments, are highly dependent on time, money and access to a solid team of developers. But many IT managers want to break out of this paradigm and are now feeling confident to move toward low-code solutions.
Gartner recently predicted that worldwide low-code use will go up by 20%—a strong trend that shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, more and more of our clients are now using FME Server as an enterprise GIS data integration platform.
5. Process data in real time
Organizations have to deal with an increasing amount of data, especially real-time or near real-time data. This data can come from static IoT sensors, vehicle tracking applications, regular input from field teams or just via the regular exchange of information between applications such as Cityworks and ArcGIS.
No matter where these data flows come from, or whether you’re connecting via an API or webhooks, processing this data requires investing in technology, such as:
- Acquiring a first instance of FME Server
- Adding dedicated FME Server engines for specific processing operations
- Setting up FME Server test and development environments
The choice is yours
As an FME technology reseller, we are thrilled to be able to offer our clients a range of licence acquisition options. We also appreciate that FME licences are relatively affordable in comparison to the other ETL solutions and integration platforms out there.
We strongly recommend considering a subscription if you are planning to implement a structured implementation of FME in your organization. A subscription gives you the flexibility you need to accommodate more users as well as the litheness and elasticity in your capacity to process information. Just think of all the time and money a subscription can save you!